Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing the world of work.
Pia Papke and Jan-Ove Becker from Littler explain how companies
can make legally compliant and efficient use of the new possibilities.
Not long after ChatGPT was launched in November 2022,
a technology company approached us and said
My employees have suddenly started using ChatGPT
and other tools that are available.
And they weren’t sure Is that actually ok?
Can we do that? Should we regulate it?
And then we very quickly got in touch with our American colleagues,
who already have a big practice group in this area,
which we have now rolled out worldwide, and we asked,
“What guidelines have you already drafted so that companies can use this legally?”
There are various areas of regulation that apply,
which were then also very important for the clients at that time.
Of course, one thing that is totally relevant is which tools do we want to use in the company
and which ones do we want to use more?
For example, do my employees use ChatGPT,
or are there other tools that we might be using?
Then it is very important to check again afterwards
what content has been generated by the AI, i.e. whether any discrimination
has occurred, for example. There are often problems here with AI.
After all, the AI only learns what it is fed.
And if this content is discriminatory, then it can also happen that the AI
generates discriminatory results and then in turn also checks them for accuracy.
So the AI is only as smart as the level of knowledge it is fed with.
And so one thing is very important:
always check the results and define checking obligations for employees.
Also, if you look at the statistics and why companies actually want to start using AI,
these are not generally negative reasons,
but rather, as you just mentioned, it is actually about
making the work easier, simplifying processes and perhaps also
relieving people of things that are also arduous.
So writing emails, small things, that’s something a computer can do well for me.
And that has many advantages. If you put fears in the foreground,
you can also virtually eliminate them. On the other hand:
Many years ago, MTV opened with “Video Killed the Radio Star”
and I don’t think we were all that ungrateful
that the music side has also evolved and I think the same applies to AI.
The experts at Littler make it possible for companies
to keep up with technological developments
and legally implement AI tools in their operations.